Wednesday, January 22, 2014

791 violent deaths in Iraq so far this month

Nouri's assault on Anbar continues with NINA noting military helicopters continue to bomb Falluja and Ramadi. Wael Grace (Al Mada) reports that Anbar MPs say Nouri is attempting to extend the assault on Anbar up through the April 30th parliamentary elections. MP Hamid al-Mutlaq notes a government acting wisely would have avoided a military campaign by listening to the cries of the protesters and granting concessions, would have avoided bombing cities by being in talks with the police and people of the city. Nouri al-Ali al-Kilani (Kitbat) offers a column on how Nouri al-Maliki, and his double standards, endorse and breed sectarianism in Iraq. He notes the thug and prime minister goes before the Iraqi people sullen and issues threats. Iraq Times notes that Nouri's assault on Anbar has displaced over 22,000 families. Loveday Morris (Washington Post) reports from Karbala:The plush accommodation halls on the outskirts of this southern Iraqi
city, normally reserved for visiting Shiite pilgrims, now teem with
displaced Sunnis fleeing violence in the Western province of Anbar.There and elsewhere, sectarian tensions are brewing as Iraq spirals into the worst cycle of violence it has experienced in years.
But here, in one of the holiest cities for Shiite Muslims, Sunni
children play on brightly painted swings as families gather in the
waning winter light beside clipped magnolia-lined lawns.
The refugees Nouri's assault has created should be seen as shocking and disgusting. Iraq can't afford more displaced people and to ask the citizens of Anbar to live through Nouri's assault on the province is to ask a great deal of a province that's already suffered more than enough. Hamza Mustafa (Ashraq Al-Awsat) reports:The Anbar Provincial Council has formed a crisis unit ahead of a
possible military raid on Fallujah in the hopes of resolving the
conflict in the city peacefully.Council head Sabah Karhout issued a statement Tuesday, saying: “Anbar
has formed a crisis cell led by Governor Ahmad Al-Dulaimi,” adding:
“The military solution will be the last resort if the ongoing
negotiations between officials and tribal leaders fail.”

We noted the death of Iraqi journalist Firas Mohammed Attiyah in Monday's snapshot. Today the Guardian's Greenslade Blog notes the death and these details:The bomb exploded as Attiyah accompanied a government patrol to a
ceremony in the city of Khalidiya. Muayad Ibrahim, a journalist for
Anbar TV, was also wounded in the incident.

They're wrong. We were as well. Despite early reports claiming the journalist was 'embedded' with the military at the time of his death, that is not correct. Kitabat reports today that his news outlet has confirmed that Firas Mohammed Attiyah was not with the military when he died, he was enroute to Ramadi to meet with displaced families.

Yesterday, we noted the pretty spin AP put on Nouri's decision to carve up areas of Iraq (where he polls especially poorly and where the judiciary does not bend to his will) to create new provinces out of the city of Falluja, Tuz Khurmato and the Valley of Nineveh.

Alsumaria reports an emergency session was called today by Anbar's provincial council and that, yesterday, Kurdish MP Khalid Shwani called Nouri's efforts a flagrant violation of the Iraqi Constitution. National Iraqi News Agency adds:The head of the provincial council in Anbar, Sabah Karhut rhot
confirmed that: "Fallujah is part of Anbar province, and cannot be a
governorate at this time ."He told the National Iraqi News
Agency / NINA / : "Anbar provincial council held an urgent meeting to
discuss the government's decision to make the city of Fallujah a
governorate without informing the local government officials in Anbar
."He added : "The local government in Anbar have not contacted
the central government to make Fallujah a province by itself, and this
raised signs of surprise among officials in the province, in light of
the security situation ."

Iraq Times also notes the surprise and quotes council member Suhaib al-Rawi stating that the proposal is strange and raises many questions. Strange that it raises so many questions and objections but AP missed all that and presented it as normal.

Not only is not normal, it's leading others to make requests. NINA reports:

Hundreds of Khanaqin district of Diyala province , demanded the central
government to transfer their district to a province in accordance with
the law and the Constitution. The head of the municipal council
in Khanaqin said to NINA reporter ,that citizens believed that their
demand is a legal and a constitutional entitlement.

The following community sites -- plus Dissident Voice, Cindy Sheehan, Tavis Smiley, Pacifica Evening News, Jake Tapper, Susan's On the Edge and Antiwar.com -- updated last night and this morning:

We'll close with this from Robert Scheer's "We're All Suspects In Barack Obama's America" (Huffington Post):Barack Obama's speech Friday on surveillance was his worst
performance, not as a matter of theatrical skill, though he clearly did
not embrace his lines, but in its stark betrayal of his oft proclaimed
respect for constitutional safeguards and civil liberty. His unbridled defense of the surveillance state opened the door to
the new McCarthyism of Mike Rogers and Dianne Feinstein, the leaders of
the House and Senate intelligence committees, who on Sunday talk shows
were branding Edward Snowden as a possible Russian spy. Instead of crediting Snowden for forcing what the president concedes
is a much-needed debate, Obama bizarrely cited the example of Paul
Revere and the other early American rebels in the Sons of Liberty to
denounce their modern equivalent. But the "secret surveillance
committee" Obama referenced that Revere and his fellow underground
conspirators established was intended to subvert rather than celebrate
the crimes of the British controlled government in power.

Somewhere in law school, Obama must have learned that the whole point
of our Bill of Rights, inspired by American revolutionaries like Sam
Adams, a Sons of Liberty co-conspirator, was to curtail government power
as the main threat to freedom. Thus was Adams' insistence on the Bill
of Rights, including the Fourth Amendment, banning the warrantless
searches that Obama now seeks to justify.

About Me

We do not open attachments. Stop e-mailing them. Threats and abusive e-mail are not covered by any privacy rule. This isn't to the reporters at a certain paper (keep 'em coming, they are funny). This is for the likes of failed comics who think they can threaten via e-mails and then whine, "E-mails are supposed to be private." E-mail threats will be turned over to the FBI and they will be noted here with the names and anything I feel like quoting.
This also applies to anyone writing to complain about a friend of mine. That's not why the public account exists.